Injury to Spleen after fall from Height in an Unusual Posture

Abstract

Normally any history of abdominal injury points toward an emergency because of intrusion of  concealed trauma. There could be an envisaging of spectrum of injuries camouflaged under the guise of  pain. Spleen is one organ which is easily injured under force of blunt trauma. Therefore, a farsighted  surgeon would obviously focus his attention to this aspect. A 22 years old, unmarried female, presented  herself at the Emergency section of J. N. Medical College Hospital, AMU, Aligarh, with complaint of  severe pain in abdomen and difficulty in maintaining an erect posture about 2 hours back. She gave  history of fall from lower 3rd of the staircase from a height of about 3-4 feet. Physical examination didn’t  reveal any clue. However USG report showed sub-capsular hematoma in the spleen. This case report  merited detailed study because she gave details of unusual posture while falling down. Ordinarily such a  fall would not have precipitated such findings as available in the ultra-sonogram; details of these are  discussed in the paper.